Zvuky Prahy / Sounds of Prague

The letter of Ivan Martin Jirous aka Magor wriitten for his wife Juliana from the detention in Ruzyně Prison where he was in 1973 together with several artists. Jirous reading is from radio program of the CRO Vltava broadcasted in 2006. The beginning of the history of the place and object where the present remand prison is located goes back to the early period of the 19th century. At that time a sugar house was built up there. It worked until 1921. Up to the present, just a water tower has survived, which has become the remund prison’s dominant. In 1935, the Land Penitentiary, which was a public institution, was transferred from Hradčany to the place of the former sugar house which was abolished. The main contents of the terms served by „convicts“ and prisoners there was work at a farm and in workshops. After the Second World War, a unit was established in the penitentiary, which served as a detention camp. In 1949, the Land Penitentiary was taken over by the State Security, which transformed it in the fi fties into a prison for mostly remand purposes, where hearings and investigation of political prisoners took place. The prison had its own very strict regimen that lasted up to the sixties. Even noted persons were imprisoned therein. Till the present day, former political prisoners meet there and recollect the diffi cult times of their lives which they were forced to spend therein. Remand Prison Praha - Ruzyně is one of the largest and at the same time one of the oldest prisons in the Czech Republic. It is located near Ruzyně Airport and has been designed mainly for remand of male, female, and juvenile detainees from Pratur and from the Central Bohemia Region. The accommodation kapacity of the remand prison is 510 persons. The remand unit cares for the due conditions of the stay of imprisoned persóna and, at the same time, for the observance of their basic human rights and for the co-operation with the authorities of criminal procedure. Also, the remand unit arranges educational, speciál - interest, and sporting activities for detainees; enhanced attention is given to juvenile detainees. Important is also assistance to drug addicts through the „Anti-Drug Advice Bureau“. Sanitary, psychological, social, legal, and religious care is being provided.Within the remand prison, a unit for imprisonment of males under supervision has been established. It has a capacity for 219 persons. The imprisonment unit has a remarkably high employment rate of male convicts. A part thereof is employed in the internal operation of the prison, and a part of males complying with the conditions of free movement out of the prison works in the framework of external co-operation for state as well as non-state companies. Within treatment programmes, the prisoners can develop free-time activities such as, for example, work with PC, gardening, foreign language study, social-legal and psychological counselling, etc. Remarkable is the co-operation with the kindergarten in Praha 8 – Čimice, where the convicts carry out, regularly and voluntarily, maintenance work in their free time. Within the educational programme for convicts, signifi cant support is given to extramural studies of convicts at secondary and university-level schools, which invites great interest amongst inmates. A branch of Remand Prison Praha - Ruzyně is the imprisonment unit for female convicts under control and supervision at Řepy. The accommodation capacity is 56 places.